Talent Acquisition Strategies for Effective Hourly Hiring

Your Talent Acquisition Strategy Matters. A Lot.

Some people will argue that talent recruitment and talent acquisition are the most critical functions of human resources. We couldn't agree more—especially for organizations that hire high volumes of hourly employees. For these organizations, perfecting the task of hiring the right people at the right time has enormous benefits on business outcomes.

Talent acquisition is a critical activity for any organization—hiring the wrong person has a spiderweb of negative effects. Likewise, hiring the right person introduces a collection of positive impacts on the organization. It comes down to hiring the right people. You can appraise, coach, and introduce a variety of activities to manage talent—but the key trigger is having the right person in the job from the beginning.

Hourly Hires Vs. Salaried Employees: The Talent Recruitment Struggle

Organizations with locations spread out over a diverse geographic area have unique needs for finding and acquiring skilled employees. It's crucial to use talent acquisition software that meets these specific needs, whether finding, assessing, or hiring candidates.

Most businesses find they need two types of platforms: one for distributed hourly positions and one for salaried or central recruiting systems. Few talent acquisition companies in this market offer organizations solutions for both types of hires. And those that do don't typically provide the same level of technology and support for both types of talent recruitment. This gap drives some organizations to utilize two talent acquisition solutions, one for salary hiring and another for hourly hiring. However, this can be cumbersome for hiring managers, particularly if the two talent acquisition solutions don't integrate seamlessly with each other.

Most talent acquisition solutions were designed to recruit salaried employees and work well in a centralized human resources office with a requisition-based hiring process. This does not work for an hourly distributed workforce that tends to have high turnover. Effective hourly hiring and hourly talent recruitment need a system that supports managers in the field, whose responsibility is to find and hire employees for their location. In short, the hourly hiring process is much different from a centralized recruiting system.

[Handpicked Related Content: The Difference Between Talent Acquisition and Recruiting]

You Need an "Always On" Approach

In hourly hiring and talent recruitment, you never close a requisition. We refer to this strategy as "evergreen hiring," meaning the jobs stay open all the time like an evergreen tree with green leaves year-round.

Evergreen hiring requires evergreen job postings and an overall evergreen recruiting strategy. Your hiring managers are always looking for cashiers, and servers, sales associates, and other hourly positions depending on your industry due to high turnover. That's where solutions like Cadient Decision Point can have a huge impact. Cadient Decision Point is built specifically for hourly hiring and talent recruitment, and it's designed to help you build, manage and execute the evergreen hiring process.

With an evergreen recruiting strategy, most hiring happens at the store level. We hear it all of the time—one of the top frustrations for local hiring managers and store managers is high employee turnover. In a recent survey, 71% of hiring managers responded that they are not confident with their hiring decisions (source: Cadient Talent). Because they cannot keep employees long, they're more concerned about hiring than they are about appraising performances. After all, there's not a lot to appraise if a person only stays three months on the job.

If you can get the right person in the position, not only will they do a better job, but they'll stay longer, work harder, and care more. Then and only then will talent management functions like performance appraisals, training, etc., become applicable to the job.

The Power of An Employee Referral Software

An employee referral program is a simple and inexpensive solution that helps attract more and better hourly hires. Once hired, candidates who enter the talent recruitment funnel through an employee referral software solution tend to perform better overall and stay on the job longer. 82% of employers rated employee referrals the best return on investment (Source: CareerBuilder). Because your employees are familiar with your company, jobs, culture, and expectations, they are the perfect source for finding candidates that would be an excellent fit for your organization. Unfortunately, organizational management and hiring managers often undervalue employee referral programs and the positive impact they can have on hourly employee turnover.

Your employee referral program should be quick and easy to set up. It should be simple to learn and use. So easy and intuitive that training should be minimal. HR, local managers, and employees should find your employee referral software a joy to use!

Employee referral solutions with automated features minimize the work and tasks needed from HR and hiring managers and create huge efficiencies in keeping your program on track, ensuring continuous employee communication and updates, and distributing regular and timely compensation through automated payouts.  Automated payouts build trust with your employees—failing to pay for referrals and follow through on employee referral program incentives is a sure and quick way to kill your employee referral program.

Technology you should consider in your employee referral solution are:

  • Automated employee referral payouts
  • Digital communication outlets with candidates and employees such as chat and texting capabilities
  • Tracking of all referrals and the employee referrer
  • A quick implementation and start-up time  

The Payout of the Right Hourly Talent Recruitment Solution is Huge

It's vital that local managers find and hire the best candidates quickly and as efficiently as possible. Even though field managers function as talent recruiters, talent recruitment and talent acquisition are not their primary jobs. Most have not been trained as talent recruiters. They are busy running your stores, ordering inventory, and managing finances. Talent recruitment is an integral part of their job.

Still, it is just one of the many daily, weekly, and monthly responsibilities they handle while operating your locations. Your talent acquisition solution should make it simple for managers to get the right people in place at the right time. They should ensure your local managers have a steady stream of high-quality candidates in their pipeline.

Your employee referral program should complement these efforts and drive value for HR, hiring managers, and employees. HR is empowered through help with tracking, measuring, and rewards fulfillment. Hiring managers receive a higher quality and more stable workforce. Employees get to work in a culture they thrive in and feel the gratification of high performance. Ultimately, your organization gets the talent it needs to provide excellent customer experiences and build customer loyalty day after day. After all, a strong, high-performing workforce is the key to a successful business.

Are you looking to start or revamp an employee referral program? Learn how to optimize employee referrals here.

 

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